BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01823 I had the day off for New Year’s Eve and we took it easy most of the day. We prepared for our friends The PRestons to come over to celebrate the new year. They have two girls who are older than Andy and the other is older and Eva. However, they all get along so well and the kids have so many interests that compliment each other. We even learned that one daughter loves to paint swords. I think I know who to send The Sword of Omens when it is time to paint. Allison and I always have great conversations with Aaron and Denise. We haven’t seen each other in a long time but it was so nice to get back together as if no time had passed.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01822 Our first major print with the 3D printer is The Sword of Omens from The Thundercats. I wanted one for upcoming Comic Book Conventions. The build is in several stages and once it is all together is is fairly large. This is one part of the handle of the sword and it didn’t print that well so I am going to print it one more time. Hopefully that will print better. I’m getting better at the prints.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01821 I put the 3D printer through its paces a bit today. I found a file of the Thundercats logo and decided to print it out. It was very large and I did not add glue to the hotbed prior to printing so partway through the build it separated from the hotbed and did not come out as clean as it could have. It is fun watching these being printed. Interesting to see how each layer is made. The large print was 85 layers and took a little over 2 hours to print. I reduced the size to a 9mm diameter ad that made the print 73 layers and took about 46 minutes to print. The second time I put down some glue from a glue stick and it did not separate from the hotbed as it printed. The second print is so much smoother and precise. You can see on the outer rim of the build that it looks scruffy. That was because the bottom separated from the hotbed and I wasn’t sure if I should scrap the build or let it play out. I let it play out. I can use that one as a test for painting.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01820 We celebrated my friend Derek’s 50th birthday tonight at Towne Tavern. It was a very nice evening catching up with friends and sharing stories. Derek reminded me that there was also a birthday party for his 30th where many of the same people were in attendance. In face I was writing this blog 20 years ago and even have a post up of that night.  DEREK’S 30TH BIRTHDAY BASH! .  I have a lot of things documented in the past 20 years on this blog. so many things. While we have aged in that time we can still be transported back to the early days with all the funny stories that we have together. Before heading to the party I worked on setting up the 3D printer. I had a heck of a time getting the filament to get into the correct spot but about an hour before we were to leave I got it working and ran the benchmark print, a little boat called Benchy. The printer prints quite quickly and I’m looking forward to whatever else we can create.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01819 Eva got this black jean jacket/hoodie for Christmas. She immediately printed out several star constellations so that she could embroider them on the back of the jacket. did she know how to embroider before Sunday? No. She just decided that that was what she wanted to do and she started doing it. She’s been at this project for the past couple of days and has made a ton of progress on it. she is always very content to just work on a project or read a book or do her own thing. She did spend more time around everyone else this year because of her Loop earplugs. they allow her to be around the chaos and noise and not get overwhelmed. Definitely a good buy for her.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01818 Later this morning we went to The Cape to visit my parents for a couple of days. My sister Tara and her husband Erik were there and so were my sister Shelby and her kids. The younger cousins all played together nicely. Dylan got a Nintendo Switch for christmas so the kids played a lot of Mario Kart together. I’ve got a ton of games that I can share with him that he may enjoy. We set it up so that the two of us couple play head to head on our respective Switches. Eva worked hard on her embroidery project. She is embroidering stars on the back of her new jean jacket/hoodie. She worked on it most of the day. It was a rather foggy day. We arrived in fog and the kids went to the beach after we had opened our gifts and the stockings. It was so foggy that you could not see the water from the wall. We enjoyed a very nice meal for lunch and then had pizza for dinner and watched the movie the Christmas Chronicles. That is a good one for the whole family. It was nice ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01817 Christmas Day here was a bit different than past years. We were going to be spending the entire day on our own because we’re spending the next couple of days with family on the Cape. We started off our morning with Stockings and cinnamon rolls. Allison made them fresh the other day and we had plenty for our morning. We took our time with everything and slowly opened our gifts. We didn’t go fully overboard this year because there was one big gift for everyone and Allison and I had already given ourselves a night out as a gift so we were a bit more reserved with the overall gift giving this year. Allison got the kids each some stuffed animals from IKEA that they loved. Andy got a octopus and Eva a shark. I just know that Eva is going to do some project with that. Andy was a the prankster by wrapping a can of soup for me that looked like a mug. I have this thing about the number of mugs we have in the house. There are too many so when we were shopping and Andy sugg...